


Elysium

by amonitrate



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/amonitrate
Summary: Everything would have been easier if Methos had disappeared.Missing scenes from Revelations 6:8.





	Elysium

Duncan sank to the concrete and breathed, every molecule unsettled, every thought out of joint. Once he was certain Cassandra was gone his eyes shut and there was nothing to anchor him to the here and now but the desolate plink of water far off in the cavernous space. The man on the platform below him was silent. When Duncan opened his eyes again much later he half expected Methos to have vanished, and at first glance it seemed so. But after he scrubbed his eyes and got them to focus through the gloom he could just make out the ghost shape of the other man's body, the expanse of his back where he lay curled on the concrete. Disgust twisted Duncan's face and he let it. Everything would have been easier if Methos had disappeared. 

Fuck it. Maybe this time it was *his* turn to pull the vanishing act. Duncan dragged himself to his feet and it took more effort than he'd thought possible, his muscles and tendons screaming from strain. He was half out of breath by the time he made it upright. He searched for the katana and found it a few feet away, next to the discarded corpse of the immortal he'd beheaded. Koren. Kronos. Whoever the hell he was, he was dead now. 

Duncan turned back to the cavern and to Kronos's brothers, one a fellow corpse, one the last of the Horsemen. Death hadn't moved, at this distance little to distinguish him from the hulking body beside him. 

Something in Duncan hesitated.

Something else snarled. Whatever else Methos was, he'd proven he could take care of himself. 

Duncan kicked the headless body at his feet, then kicked it again. It rolled to its back, empty hands splayed. Smaller than it had seemed while driving at him with barbed blade and feral grin, the light in the eyes less hatred than the enjoyment of a cat with a mouse in its grip. 

_Methos pacing the churchyard, a condemned man at his last confession._ I go up against him, I lose. _Utter conviction in his voice. Echoes of old, old struggles and a certainty that wasn't about skill. Like a sliver of glass under Duncan’s skin, it had worked its way deeper the whole way from Elysium to the Place de Concordes. To defuse the bomb Methos had set._

_Methos pressing the katana to Duncan's throat in the dojo, Methos at Duncan's feet insisting he was rusty, then using the same move Duncan had disarmed him with to kill Kristen. Methos bedraggled under the bridge in Paris, goading Duncan to take his head, insisting he no longer had the fire. Methos at Joe’s bar, suggesting to Richie the imposter offered his head because he knew Richie wouldn't take it. The look on his face at the dojo when Duncan asked him about Kronos, just before Cassandra had appeared._

_Methos in another church, unarmed, insisting Duncan was too important to lose. His snarl in Seacouver, laughing at slaughter._

Fuck making sense of it all. It was nothing to him now. It was over, and Methos's twisted reasons, his rationalizations and excuses, were his own. 

He gave a thought to the carnage and shrugged it off. The bunker Kronos had chosen for his lair was isolated enough the quickenings would have gone unnoticed to the outside world. Watchers would descend, vultures picking over the corpses, and Duncan was more than happy to let them this time. He stepped over Kronos and made his way towards the 20th century. 

Watchers. Joe knew Methos was one of the horsemen, but he wouldn't have told the Watchers. The old immortal was in for an unpleasant unveiling if he was still here when they moved in to pillage the scene for their chronicles. The dark curl of pleasure at the thought took Duncan by surprise, curdled to shame. He shook both off. It served the bastard right.

_Methos’s face, a still point in the surrounding chaos as the two fights briefly disintegrated, his gaze sliding from Duncan to Kronos. Opaque and ageless as carved marble in the gloom. Kronos had screamed his rage at the sight of his brother battling Silas, roared in betrayal and the closest thing a psychopath could come to hurt. Whatever else had been locked behind that inscrutable mask, there hadn't been anything like hope in Methos's expression._

_However the fight shook out, in that moment he hadn't expected to survive._

__You set me up. _And Methos had shot him a glare of pure contempt._ Like you said, I go with the winner.

Duncan stopped, snarled up inside, thoughts snagged on rusting razor wire. Fuck him. Methos had made his choice.

_The tremor in Methos's hands steadying as he probed Joe's chest for bullets, the smear of Joe's blood on his cheek when Duncan handed him the scalpel he'd disinfected in the flame of his lighter. Methos hadn't left the bookstore cellar, hadn't slept for four days. Not until Joe woke up._

_Joe in the loft in Seacouver, with the wide-lensed, relativist argument of a historian, then laying bare his own history of slaughter._

If Duncan left Methos -- Adam Pierson, tarnished former Watcher -- for his compatriots to find in this place, what would Joe do?

They said when you were going through hell, you should never look back.

"Damn the lot of you," Duncan grated, his voice shot. 

He turned back toward hell.

 

Still half hoping Methos would be long gone by the time he got there, Duncan picked his way back to ground zero. The quickenings had blasted and scorched the concrete walls, melted metal and kicked up splashes of dirty water that lingered in drying pools on the floor. The blood around Kronos's corpse had started to congeal. From the bridge where the Horsemen's leader had given up his quickening, Duncan could just see the distant platform below, the gloom gathered like fog as whatever torches remained scattered through the bunker began to burn out. Duncan's dismal luck ran true. The old immortal was still lying where he'd fallen after Cassandra had stormed off, lying as if a dead thing. The discordant presence that burned through Duncan said otherwise. 

A moat of dirty water separated them. Duncan stumbled, searching for a way through in the near dark, listening for Watchers, hearing nothing but his own harsh breathing, the drag of his feet. All he could see of Methos was the dim glow where his grey sweatshirt caught whatever light was left. Duncan followed it like a beacon through the bowels of the abandoned base. He didn't know what he expected to happen when he reached Methos, but was caught short when met with… nothing. He stood over the old immortal, catching his breath while Methos just lay there, silent and still.

"Methos," Duncan risked. Nothing. He nudged the small of Methos's back with the toe of his boot, not quite a kick. No reaction. Annoyance rose, edged with something else he refused to acknowledge. Duncan circled until he could see Methos's face, blurred in the grey light of the place, but that got him nothing too. The features were slack and unresponsive. 

Duncan squatted. "Hey. Your Watcher goons are going to be here any minute." He didn't want to touch the other man, part lingering rage, part unnamable hesitation. Like if he tried invisible forces might buffett his hand, two magnets repelling. So he sharpened the blade of his voice. "Methos."

When he reached out, his hand moved through the air with no rebuffing pressure to stop him. He shook Methos's shoulder but the immortal was limp under his grip. Absent. He'd been conscious after the quickening. Lucid enough to cry out his grief. But of course nothing was going to be easy, the asshole. Duncan shoved at the shoulder again and Methos rolled half onto his back, legs still twisted to the side. His eyes slid open and Duncan let out a huff. "Get up," he ordered.

Methos blinked, his face empty of any reaction to Duncan's voice. When Duncan bent over him Methos's eyes didn't track the movement. Weren't focused on anything. 

"Goddamn you, get up, or I'm leaving you here to rot with your brothers." He couldn't help the snarl on the last word. Nothing flickered in Methos's eyes. His head lolled rag doll loose when Duncan shoved at his shoulder again. 

He'd seen this, in mortals. Shock, catatonia, or something like it. If it was faked Duncan would murder him, but he didn't think even Methos was that good.

"You've got to be kidding me," he groused to himself. Just to be sure, he reached out and pinched Methos's earlobe, hard, between his fingernails. Got a flutter of eyelids but Methos didn't try to pull away from the pain, didn't flinch. Either he had remarkable control or he was completely dissociated. And playing dead wasn't much like the world's oldest control freak. What would it serve him, now? _Get you to help him out of this place without having to face you_ , some cynical voice in Duncan's head suggested. But if Methos didn't want to face him there had been plenty of time for him to scurry away like he had after he'd sold out Jakob. 

Biting back a groan of exhaustion, Duncan tugged at the other man's arms and shouldered him in a fireman's carry. He could barely stand on his own let alone under this dead weight, but made it to his feet he did, grabbing Methos's broadsword with his free hand as he went. It was a thousand miles and fifty years journey to his car. By the time he got outside to fresher air and the clean dark of night he'd just about reached the end of his endurance. Methos's body dragged at him like an anchor as he stumbled against his car. Too tired to do anything else he let Methos slide to the pavement where the other man sagged, half propped against the side of the car as Duncan dug his keys from his pocket, miraculously intact. 

He got the door open, somehow managed to lever and shove his senseless burden into the back seat, tossed both their swords into the well of the passenger side -- out of Methos's reach should he come to -- and sank into the driver's seat. Pulled the door shut and just sat, resting his forehead on the steering wheel. In the closed tomb of the car he could hear the shallow rasp of Methos breathing, nearly drowned out by his own shuddering gasps and the pounding of his pulse in his ears.

He'd gotten this far and now he was left without a plan. Cassandra might be at the hotel, and dragging an unconscious man in with him was bound to catch unwanted attention anyway. He didn't know the area well. No one had been at the church when he'd met Methos the night before. It was the only solution he could think of that didn't require driving more than he felt capable.

Elysium Church when he reached it appeared deserted. He left Methos in the car and approached the door, wary, but it opened easily under his hand. Thankful for old fashioned values of sanctuary, Duncan crossed back to the car. Methos's eyes were open again but there was nothing in them. His mouth hung open a little. It was unnerving, that detail, and convinced Duncan finally that this wasn't some scheme. He made a decision. Retrieved the swords and stashed Methos's broadsword in the trunk. Propped his katana at the ready next to the car. Then got a grip on Methos's ankles and pulled, bent to take him over his shoulder again. Grabbed his sword and made for the church.

Inside it was dim, cold, and faintly incensed. Methos must have lit the candles when they'd met here before, because the sanctuary was dark when Duncan reached it. The room was furnished with wooden chairs rather than pews so Duncan dumped his burden on the floor up near the altar and went looking for matches. It was an isolated building, more chapel for the attached graveyard then active parish, he guessed -- no one likely to see the glimmer of candles from the outside at this time of night. 

By the time he got back to the altar with a box of wooden matches, Methos was curled on his side again. Duncan had left him on his back, so he'd moved under his own power. The old immortal's eyes were closed, his mouth shut, which relieved Duncan on a level he didn't much want to think about. He spared the other man a quick glance before he set about lighting the candelabras nearest the altar. The dim of the space brightened, but not by much. When he was finished Duncan sank to his haunches, then sat on the step above where Methos lay. 

What now? He was thirsty, desperately so, and needed sleep but knew it wouldn't come, not for a long while yet. He fingered the hilt of his sword and set it aside. Methos twitched, a tremor running through his body. His breathing shifted and he blinked, blinked again. The muscles of his face drew taut. When his eyes opened this time Duncan was close enough to see the flash of utter displacement, the slower unspooling of confusion as it soured into panic. The shallow breathing cut off and then began again, more controlled. Methos's throat worked. When Duncan hunched forward, Methos flinched at the movement then caught himself, frozen in place. 

"We're in Elysium Church," Duncan said, finally, his voice cracking. 

Methos's eyes closed and something drained out of him, some tension, only to be replaced with a brittle caution. There was still confusion there and it bothered Duncan. He wasn't sure how present the other man was, how much he remembered. How to deal with… this. Whatever this was. If he even wanted to. 

"Your brothers are dead."

Methos nodded, eyes still closed. His body shook with another shudder Duncan could tell he tried and failed to control. Reaction or cold? The place was not warm, but there wasn't much Duncan could do about that. Wasn't much he cared to do about it. He thought Methos would pull himself up from the floor, try to put some distance between them, but he made no effort to move. His eyes opened again and he grimaced. His mouth opened and a sound came out, sandpaper rough and too thin to interpret. He shook his head in frustration and tried again but there was nothing. 

A smile curved Duncan's own mouth and this time he didn't feel a trace of shame. "This is a first," he said. Methos's narrow-eyed irritation provoked a laugh utterly lacking in mirth and he let it ring out. Methos looked like he wanted to turn his back on Duncan, but his position on the floor made that impossible. It pricked at Duncan, that position of unwilling submission. 

"Get up," he snapped.

Methos's mouth opened and shut and he made some gesture with his hand, abruptly cut off. Glared up at Duncan. Something built in Duncan, seeking release. When he leaned over and grabbed Methos by the shoulders, Methos's face went stiff and blank like he expected a blow. Duncan forced him upright and then sat back again, still a step above him and satisfied with it. Methos's eyes were squeezed shut and he swallowed noisily like he was seasick. One hand shot out, flailed, his arm knocking against the wooden chairs behind him. The chairs screeched against the stone floor as Methos went down, hard, unable to stop his clumsy lurch to the side.

What the hell--

Duncan yanked him up again and Methos made a croaking protest, hands fumbling to repel Duncan's grip. His eyes rolled and he choked and Duncan pulled back just in time to avoid the mess as Methos went to his hands and knees, retching. Nose wrinkling, Duncan sat back, waiting until Methos finished gagging. The other man wavered, looked about to drop into the small puddle he'd brought up, so Duncan slid an arm under his chest and pulled him clear. Hanging in his grip, the planes of Methos's face closed up tight against him. Duncan dumped him back to the floor a few feet away, giving up the need to force the other man upright against the clear evidence it wasn't happening, for whatever reason. 

"What's wrong with you?" It came out like an accusation.

Methos shot him a look that clearly communicated he thought Duncan an idiot. He was curled on his side again, his face grey and sweaty, and he made a gesture at his own head. 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

A puff of frustrated air. Methos made the gesture again, slower, twirling his finger around one ear. Richie used that particular signal to suggest someone was bonkers, but Duncan was pretty sure that wasn't what Methos was trying to say, even if he thought it an accurate summation. Methos gave up with a sweep of his hand and sank back, practically clinging to the stone floor like it might heave under him. And it clicked. 

"Equilibrium’s shot, huh?" It had never happened to him but he guessed it might be possible, a quickening blowing out your inner ear. If any quickening could do such a thing it would be whatever had happened back in that bunker. Methos didn't bother nodding. Duncan laughed again, sharp with disgust. 

So Methos's sense of balance was disrupted enough he couldn't stay upright without getting sick. All Duncan wanted was to be a hundred miles away from the other man, but here he was, stuck with him. At least Methos's voice was gone. It was the little things that kept you going in situations like this.

"I should leave you here." 

Methos flashed him a look that suggested he'd prefer Duncan did exactly that. The only thing that stopped him was the realization that Methos's sword was still in the trunk of his car and that Methos hadn't seemed to notice its absence. Not that he was in any shape to use it, even if he had.

"Well, isn't this just great." Duncan rose, his bones creaking in protest. 

Methos ignored him. Too busy making sure the floor stayed in one place. Duncan stalked off to the alcove where he'd found the matches, relief washing over him with a stone wall between him and the other man. The alcove connected to a sparely furnished bathroom, where Duncan found a roll of paper towel. He tore off a handful and wet them in the sink, then carried the lot back out to the sanctuary. Methos's eyes slit open at his approach and he watched without interest as Duncan mopped up the puddle of bile with the damp towels. Duncan's stomach rolled over at the smell. It had been at least a day since he'd eaten and though he felt no desire for food, he was starting to get the loose detached sensation that told him he needed the energy.

He returned to the rooms at the back of the sanctuary and disposed of the soiled towels. The only thing remotely eatable in the building was the carefully stored communion wafers, and even if Duncan could bring himself to violate that ingrained taboo, it wasn't like the wafers would provide much sustenance. Belatedly it came to him: out in the car, in the glove compartment, he had stashed some energy bars for just this situation. Richie's idea. Duncan sent a silent thanks to the improvisations of youth.

He collected the box of protein bars and the plastic water bottle he found in the glove box, then after a moment's consideration -- another long moment where he seriously weighed just getting behind the wheel and taking off -- popped the trunk and retrieved Methos's sword.

Methos winced at the metallic rattle when Duncan dropped the broadsword to the stone floor in front of him. He didn't raise his head -- incapable, probably -- but one hand snaked out and curled around the hilt like he couldn't help the reflex.

"You're welcome," Duncan bit off. 

Methos grated out something that sounded like "Whatever." Duncan waited for him to say more now that he'd recovered a bit of his voice, but Methos stayed quiet and a few minutes later Duncan realized with a jolt that the other man's breathing had slid into the even rhythm of sleep.

Great.

He supposed it shouldn't be a surprise; he was beyond exhausted himself, but he resented it just the same. Resented Methos for leaving him in the position of watching over him, after everything. _You could leave,_ his inner voice chided, _Staying here is your choice and you know it._

"Whatever," Duncan said aloud, and occupied himself with prying open the box of protein bars.

 

Methos didn't sleep long. Duncan was choking down his third chalky protein bar when the other man's body jerked, eyes darting under his lids, and then came up off the floor in a spasm, gripping the sword in blind instinct. Duncan paused mid chew, held himself unmoving as the sword came up and wavered, Methos's eyes glassy and only half aware, his breathing like a spooked horse. 

Duncan swallowed. "Methos," he said, toneless and even. The sword faltered, but Duncan couldn't tell whether it was because it was too heavy for him or because Methos recognized him.

"Fuck." Methos's voice was all gravel, but it was stronger and legible this time. He squinted at Duncan. 

"Put that thing down." He waited while Methos seemed to debate with himself whether that was a good idea. "We're on holy ground," Duncan reminded him.

Methos stared. "Like that means anything." The sentence faded out as it went, a radio signal drifting to static.

Duncan shrugged it off and tossed one of the remaining protein bars his way. Methos didn't try to catch it, let it bounce off his chest and fall to the floor. His attention was fixed on the half empty water bottle at Duncan's side. Duncan waited for him to ask. 

"What do you want?" He seemed able to tolerate being upright now, but Duncan would bet that if he'd been able to stand he'd have done so already. 

Duncan found an edge of curiousity under the lingering anger. "What do you think?" 

"I couldn't begin to guess." Methos tore his focus away from the water bottle and seemed to scan their surroundings for the first time. He didn't ask how they'd gotten there, or why, or what had happened to his brothers. He'd lowered the Ivanhoe back to the floor but kept his hand loose on the hilt. Shivered. 

The memory had come to him while Methos slept. "You told me Kronos had a laboratory," Duncan said. Waited for Methos to catch up. He nodded, wary, and Duncan nodded back. "Tell me he had his little experiment secured."

Methos went colorless. His voice, when it came, was hoarse, back to static. "I don't know," he swallowed. "When he… showed it to us. The virus. He had it in a vault of sorts."

"Is there another bomb?"

Methos shook his head. "I don't know."

"Jesus, Methos--" Duncan broke off. Methos was struggling to his knees, using the Ivanhoe and a grip on one of the chairs behind him to lever himself to his feet. "Where are you going?"

"Before you got there." The words were hard to make out between Methos's pants for air. "He said--"

Duncan froze, his heart racing. "What? What did he say?"

"I don't know if he was lying," Methos ground out. "He knew I'd warned you. About the fountain."

"And?"

"I don't know," Methos said again. He kept saying that, as if it mattered, as if it was some kind of defense. "He was always one for head games. The reservoir. He mentioned the reservoir above Bordeaux."

 

Duncan's cell phone was long lost, and the one Methos produced from his back pocket rattled when he shook it. Duncan headed towards the back rooms of the church, sure he'd seen a phone earlier. Methos followed him, lurching like a man who’d lost his sea legs, catching himself on the backs of chairs as they crossed the sanctuary, then on the stone wall, on the doorway, but keeping his feet. There. On a desk next to the wardrobe where the priest's vestments were stored. Duncan lifted the receiver and dialed Joe's number and stopped short when a mechanical voice told him the church had no international service. Methos grabbed the receiver from his hand, listened, and punched in a long series of numbers from memory. Handed the receiver back to Duncan. Duncan arched a brow at him but Methos wouldn't meet his eyes.

The phone rang and rang and he was about to give up when Joe's voice came on the line, gruff and jarringly normal.

"Joe," Duncan breathed. Methos's knuckles went white where he was gripping the desk to keep himself upright. 

"Mac? Mac, Jesus, what-- are you okay?" The line was a little tinny with distance but Duncan could hear the relief. He smiled, genuine, for the first time in days. 

"Yeah, Joe, I'm alright. Look--"

"The Watchers on site said it was like a bomb had gone off. I thought--" Joe broke off. "They'd seen you at a church with someone they were sure was one of the horsemen."

Duncan knew what he wanted to know, wondered that he didn't just ask. "He made it out, Joe." Next to him, Methos went stiff. "Look, I don't know how much time we've got. Kronos may have set another bomb, rigged with a virus--"

"Mac, we know. We had a guy on Kronos, he called it in. There's a bomb squad with a hazmat unit on site right now."

Duncan felt himself sag. Methos dropped into the chair next to the desk with a thump. 

"MacLeod--" His voice was strangled. 

Duncan shook his head. "Watchers are on it," he said, before turning his attention back to the phone.

"Joe, at the bunker, there's a lab. There may be samples left of the virus. Infected monkeys."

Joe let out a curse. "Our team didn't find anything like a laboratory. It's a big place, lots of locked doors. They processed the… scene. Silas and Kronos. And got out of there."

Fuck. Okay. 

"I can tip off the cops in Bordeaux," Joe offered.

"No, too risky," Duncan said. "Your people have done enough. I'll handle it." 

"Is-- is he with you?" Joe asked. 

Duncan glanced at Methos, expecting the other man to demand to talk to the Watcher himself, but Methos had his head in his hands, elbows braced on the desk. "No," he lied. "Joe, I gotta go."

 

If the drive back to the bunker exacerbated Methos's vertigo, he didn't mention it. Kept his eyes shut the whole trip though, leaving Duncan to wonder how much of a help he was going to be once they got to their destination. 

"Don't get sick in my car," Duncan warned. Methos ignored him, face set. Later: "How do we destroy a virus?"

"Do I look like a virologist?" It was the last thing Duncan got out of him until he pulled the car up behind the bunker.

They brought their swords, though there didn't seem to be any need. The bunker rang hollowly with their footsteps as Methos led him through the warren of passageways, the lit torch Duncan carried the only illumination. They passed an open room with a round table flanked by four chairs more sculpture than furniture. Methos hesitated and then left the circle of light cast by Duncan's torch, returned a moment later wearing a long black coat, his sword out of sight. 

A few minutes later Methos stopped short in front of an anonymous door and though Duncan expected it to be locked, the handle turned easily in his hand. Duncan went through first and the light from the torch set off a shrieking he thought was an alarm system until the shadows melted enough to reveal cages and the wild rage of trapped monkeys inside. Methos drifted into the room past him, stood in front of one of the cages.

"Silas wanted this one," he said, staring down at the frantic animal, "as a pet."

"Methos." Duncan didn't like the detached emptiness in Methos's voice, the way his gaze slid around the room without settling on anything in particular. "Where's the vault?"

The monkeys wailed, setting Duncan's teeth on edge. Methos moved like a man in a dream, head cocked as if straining to hear a call far off in the distance. He crossed to a metal panel in the wall, hand hovering over a glowing keypad. "I don't know the code," he said, then without hesitation punched in seven numbers and stepped back as the panel slid open, a cold light painting his face.

Duncan stared at him. 

"Were you in Europe during the plague?" Methos asked. His voice had taken on a sing-song cadence. 

"Before my time," Duncan bit off. 

Methos shook his head. "Right," he said, and something in his eyes snapped back into focus. He scanned the shelves of the vault. "As far as I know, he only had the one vial. It isn't here."

"Used it up at the reservoir?" 

Methos shrugged, like it didn't matter.

"Methos--"

"I don't know, okay?" He rounded on Duncan, overtaken by the tangle of self-loathing and rage he'd wielded like a lash in that parking lot in Seacouver, at the church as he recounted his history with Cassandra. "He didn't exactly trust me with the details."

Duncan snorted in disbelief and Methos's expression went stony just before he turned and stalked back towards the door. 

"What about the monkeys?" Duncan called. "Are they infected?"

Methos halted in the doorway. Turned back. Swept a hand over his face. "They're not dead," he said. 

"That might not mean anything." 

Instead of answering, Methos crossed the room again and dug around one of the lab benches, searching through and discarding bottles until he found what he was apparently looking for. He poured together a few liquids with care into a beaker. Found a rag, stuck one end into the liquid. Set the mixture down on the floor next to the cages, ignoring the ear splitting hysteria of the animals inside as he crouched over the beaker. 

"What are you doing?" Duncan demanded.

"When I light this, make for the exit," Methos said, pulling a lighter out of his pocket.

Duncan didn't wait for him to explain.

 

They made it back to the room with the nightmare interior design before the explosion shook the building, the blast wave knocking them both off their feet. 

"So much for the monkeys," Methos mumbled where he lay on the concrete. Blood painted his upper lip and there was a bruise on his cheekbone that faded before Duncan could reply.

It was an awful way to have disposed of the problem. Duncan opened his mouth to say so, then realized neither of them had a gun and the monkeys had been too frantic to have been reached for anything more humane without risking a nasty mauling.

"So you’re a chemist, not a virologist?" Duncan managed.

Methos let out a brittle laugh. "Something like that." He wiped the blood from his face and pulled himself to his knees, wracked by a fit of coughing. 

Duncan made it to his feet first. Stood waiting on the other man. 

"Is there anything else I should know about?" 

Methos set his jaw. Shook his head.

"Alright then." Duncan turned and left. 

A few minutes later he heard Methos follow. When they reached the car Duncan thought about telling him he could find his own way from here. As if reading his mind, Methos gave him that twisted little smile. Waiting him out.

"Get in the car," Duncan said. 

Methos didn't ask where they were going.

 

Too drained to figure anything else out, sure he'd wreck the car if he kept going, Duncan drove them back to Elysium Church. Methos made a sound when he saw it appear in the headlights but he didn't protest. Just waited for Duncan to park then trailed after him back inside. 

Once inside Duncan made for the phone. Remembered at the last minute that he hadn't been able to dial internationally himself, and looked up to find Methos at his elbow. 

"Joe?" Methos asked. At Duncan's nod he repeated the sequence of numbers from before without comment then vanished into the small bathroom, not giving him a chance to ask exactly what code allowed him to apparently hack an international carrier. Duncan heard the lock snick.

After he assured Joe the bunker was taken care of, Duncan dialed the Hotel de Seze. Cassandra had checked out, they told him, and he wasn't surprised. Her face, stripped and betrayed as she hefted the ax above Methos's neck. The way her voice had broken when he demanded she let Methos live. 

Duncan felt sick. 

He could just hear water running in the bathroom as he reserved another room at the hotel.

 

He was sitting in a chair in front of the altar when Methos materialized out of the gloom, eyes shadowed in their sockets, skull-like. He came to a halt in the aisle between the rows of chairs, stood staring at the crucifix, thin mouth twisted with something sardonic that raised Duncan's hackles. 

"Holy ground," he mused. "You Christians think you have a monopoly on it, like you invented the concept. The arrogance of youth."

"I'm not a Christian," Duncan said. 

"Aren't you?" Methos was trying to provoke him. The only thing Duncan was unsure of was the reason. When Duncan didn't give him anything, Methos deflated. "Why are you still here?" Methos's hair looked wet, like he'd stuck his head under the faucet in the bathroom. His hands were thrust deep in his coat pockets and he'd crossed them in front of his torso, pulling the coat tight around his body. "I don't know what you want from me," he said to the crucifix. 

"There are no answers," Duncan echoed. "Right?"

"Bright boy," Methos shot back. 

"Bullshit," Duncan said. Methos didn't look at him.

"Maybe," Methos said. "But if there are any answers I doubt you’d like them much."

It was the closest thing to an opening he'd given since they'd parted ways outside the television studio in Seacouver.

"Kronos found you. Before you showed up at the dojo."

Methos gave his back to Duncan. "Yes." 

"How'd he find you?"

"I got sloppy." It wasn't really an answer. He seemed to catch himself. "Cosmic irony: he'd been tracking my impersonator. Found the real thing."

Duncan couldn't help himself. "Sounds more like karma than irony."

Methos let out a bark of laughter, ruthlessly strangled.

"If Kronos didn’t trust you, how'd you know the code to the vault?" 

Methos turned then, and his profile was a death mask in the dim light. "What?" he asked.

"The vault. You said you didn't know the code, and then--"

The death mask blinked at him. "In the… in the lab?" Like he wasn't sure what vault Duncan was talking about.

Duncan went cold. "Yes. In the lab." Less than two hours ago.

Methos took a breath. Another. "I don't know the code. He didn't tell me what it was."

"That's… Methos, you unlocked the vault."

"I couldn't have." Methos protested. He backed away a step. "I don't know the code."

In the bunker, Kronos's quickening had seemed a living thing, seeking out his brother, defying every rule of the nature of their kind. Duncan had *felt* it leave him.

Methos was staring at him wide eyed, a hair's breadth from bolting. Warren Cochrane had looked at him like that, once. Methos had counseled him to take Cochrane’s head.

Duncan let it go.

"You knew where the others were," Duncan said, changing the subject. "Silas and Caspian. You kept track of them."

"Yes." Methos's focus had gone inward, only half listening. 

He'd wandered away from the altar, toward the side entrance of the church. Duncan rose to follow. The first glimmers of dawn were rising outside, turning the dim light grey. 

"The Watchers?"

"Yes." 

"But not Kronos."

“There were rumors in the Chronicles,” Methos shrugged, hugging his jacket around his chest. His voice had firmed up but his gaze was still distant as he pushed through the door. "Koren. Other aliases, other possibilities. I didn't know for sure."

Duncan strayed a few paces behind Methos as they skirted the cemetery grounds, though he couldn’t have said why. 

"But you had to know Kronos would come for you one day.” He sounded like a child begging for reassurance. 

Methos paused just inside the gate, hands still thrust deep in his coat pockets. It was a strange gesture for a man who expressed himself with his hands as much as his voice.

“I tried not to think about it.” 

It struck him as a brushoff at first, too glib for the weight of the moment, but something in the line of Methos’s shoulders brought Duncan up short before he could react. That level of avoidance -- what did it mean, to live your life that way? To live thousands of years so compartmentalized? He’d always thought of Adam Pierson as a mask Methos used to hide himself, thought it all an elaborate act, but this… He remembered Methos using _we_ to refer to the Watchers. His anguish over Jakob and Shapiro’s war, as if he felt more Watcher than Immortal. As if he’d forgotten he wasn’t really one of them at all, like an actor lost in his role.

It was too much. So he left it for later, when he could turn everything that had happened around in his mind, free of the immediate contradictions Methos’s presence aroused in him. Instead, he focused on the one question that had dogged him since Seacouver.

“You could have killed him, why didn’t you?”

“I wanted to.” Methos turned to face him finally. His expression was still closed off, but something in his voice begged Duncan to understand. “But we were brothers. In arms, in blood, in everything except birth and if I judged him worthy to die then I judged myself the same way. And I wanted to live.” Such bitterness, but Duncan couldn’t tell who Methos was aiming for -- Duncan or himself. “I still do.”

Methos didn’t wait for a reaction. Headed for the cemetery gate.

“Kronos was right, you set the whole thing up, didn’t you?” It didn’t come out the way he’d intended, the accusation edged with a peevish note that he couldn't seem to help. 

Methos halted, kept Duncan at his back. “What’d you mean?” Non-committal and totally exhausted, like he knew everything Duncan could ever think to say and had already decided the conversation was pointless. 

“You knew he’d come after Cassandra,” Duncan felt like he was explaining the obvious but pushed on, determined to get some kind of answer, after everything. “And you let him because you knew I’d come after her. You couldn’t kill him but you hoped I could.”

Methos glanced back at him, then started walking again before he responded. “Maybe.” Neutral, impenetrable, done with everything Duncan might have to say. 

“Maybe.” Duncan echoed, annoyed. Methos hesitated a moment and Duncan thought he’d say more but he just walked on, shoulders hunched under his coat as Duncan followed him off holy ground. “Methos. What about Cassandra?”

There was nothing but weariness in the other man’s voice this time. "One of a thousand regrets, MacLeod. One of a thousand regrets."

Questions boiled under Duncan’s skin, but when Methos kept walking, heading away from him in a beeline towards the nearby vineyard, Duncan let him go. 

He retraced his steps back to the church. Doused the candles and straightened the chairs and made certain things looked as undisturbed as he could make them. He waited by his car for ten minutes. Got inside and waited another fifteen, but Methos didn't reappear. 

If he wanted to walk back to Bordeaux, that was fine with Duncan. Good riddance anyway.


End file.
